Somethingiel
by Lady Serpentine
Summary: Formerly 'Marisa and Roger'. According to the Free Magic necromancer Marisa, also called Serpentine, Mordicants make very lovely pets. They eat souls, play fetch, and bring back slightly handsome guards to be your slaves. Good pets, Mordicants.
1. Mordi

[Formerly _Marisa and Roger_, this story features the same characters but with a different plot line and such. Anyway. While it will be filled with things nice and nasty (romance, gore, adventure, horror, sick jokes – wait, I'm listing all the nice things…) this will be a little bit of a parody, as you can conclude from the name. And yes, I will have a sequel or two titled _Something-ael_ and _Something-sen_. No stealing my ideas! Keep yer own mangy titles!

Anyway, almost all characters are © me, except for a choice few, which will be revealed later on. Why? Hush, I can't tell! Stoppit!

The Old Kingdom, Ancelstierre and shtuff is © Garth Nix, of course. Good ole Garth Nix. I'd give him a hug if I could.

Also, several characters, who represent my friends, will make several cameo appearances, and they are © themselves.

And don't complain about the amount of M-names. M is a nice letter. I do it on purpose.

And if something seems wrong or incorrect in the story – Marisa's ability to be a Charter Mage, for one – all will be explained.

So please, ignore any probable errors, and enjoy this piece of oddness.]

A Mordicant is a very fearful creature. Only a very powerful necromancer could banish one, and only an even more powerful necromancer could craft one.

Mordicants were made from clay and blood, with a Dead spirit inserted within to give it a mind. While no two Mordicants were the same, almost all shared the same characteristics – three talon hands or paws, greyish green in colour, the ability to run on all fours, teeth and claws that dripped with magical fire.

Marisa's Mordicant was almost canine in shape, though it was rather crude and it easily showed that her views on anatomy were a bit warped. That was to be expected, however. She liked things that were, in a word, a bit weird.

The young necromancer was pouring over a book on charter magic. Her good friend Roger was curled up in her sleeping bag, purring contentedly. She quite liked Roger. It wasn't his fault he was in the shape of a cat.

Well, maybe it was. But oh well…

"Mordi!" Marisa yelped in frustration, "Please, Mordi, calm down. I can't concentrate."

The Mordicant stopped romping about camp and sank to the ground, looking quite unhappy and pathetic for a flame-shrouded being of blood and clay. It whined a little.

Marisa immediately softened, "Aw, Mordi, c'mere, Mordi!" she slapped her thigh and readied herself for the tackle. As expected Mordi bowled right into her, happily licking her face. The Free Magic fire on his teeth tickled her cheek.

"Go hunting, Mordi!" she said brightly, in the tone of a girl to her puppy, "Go hunting, Mordi! Gawan! Bring me something nice! Gawan, Mordi!"

Mordi barked happily and bounded away, howling an eerie cry that would remind most people of a dying… something. Well, it wasn't nice.

"_Can't you shut your damn Mordicant up_?" Roger hissed sleepily from the tangle of cloth that he had turned into his bed.

Marisa threw the book, which was now a bit muddy, at the cat. "_Silence_, you."

*

Mordi romped happily in the fields. Small creatures skittered away, quite rightfully fearful of the monster. Because, as mentioned in the first sentence of the story, a Mordicant is a fearful thing.

It snuffled around, seeking for a trace of life that was bigger than bird or mouse. It hadn't taken a life in quite some time, and it was hungry. And since it traveled with Marisa, it was constantly reminded of how tempting Life was. Not that it would ever go against her – the thought was, to it, quite horrifying. It loved Marisa, in its strange, scary way. That in itself was amazing, because Dead creatures are thought quite beyond that emotion.

It sensed something, on the wind. It licked its jowls and let the tongue hang down between his teeth. Its tail began a happy thump against the earth. Life was there. It wasn't a town, or village, which was good – attacking places like that attracted the attention of Charter Mages, maybe even the Abhorsen herself. And that would be bad. And worse yet, instead of those who worked the Charter it could even be a rival Free Magic necromancer – one that would try to claim Mordi as his own.

No, it was a group of people, moving at a moderately fast pace. Travelers? Merchants, maybe. Mordi yipped, darted in a quick circle after its own tail, and flounced off after its prey. As it did so, it reminded itself to keep an eye out for something interesting. After all, Marisa had asked it to bring something back to her.

*

Ollison surveyed the road. It was a bit rough, but he'd seen rougher. It would take a bit more work than usual, but he would be able to get the wagons through until the next town.

"Boys!" he called, "Girls," he added, to the three female guards, "Get the two wagons up front, quickly now! Help the teams. C'mon, quick!"

Guards, who were also the manpower for the wagons when horsepower wasn't enough, rushed up. They had looks of determination on their faces, except for Merle, who was rather sulky and bitter about life in general.

Merle sighed and took to pushing. He _really_ hated his job. Well, at least most of the time. Merle was a good swordsman, quick as anything, which suited his slight, almost fragile physique. However, when it came to muscles, Merle struggled quite plainly. Even the girl guards had more muscle than he did, which was altogether a bit embarrassing.

After about a half-hour of sweat and strain, the Charter Mage at the front – _damn_ him, Merle thought, _he_ didn't have to push – seemed to freeze. Well, Mister Mage hadn't been moving in the first place, but he stiffened and his chin raised, out of its usual lethargy. He was quite obviously and dramatically sensing something.

"Master Ollison!" he called. The merchant, the one that couldn't afford to have both guards and servants to do separate jobs, but had to combine them, hurried over, leaving the Caravan Master to shout indescribable insults at the guards. Merle tried to listen in on the conversation – at least it made him forget his misery for a little while.

"There's something coming." The Charter Mage shouted above the sound of the wheels, loud enough so that everyone in the area could hear. "We must get ready!"

"What's coming, old man?" Ollison responded – Merle thought that was high of him, he must have been the Mage's junior by a year or so at the most.

The Mage darted a look around, fear on his face, "I smell Death, and… Free Magic…"

And then the Mordicant was upon them.

If no one had been screaming, maybe they would have noticed how happy Mordi seemed, how he romped playfully about the guards before bringing them down, sucking the life out of them. About how he inspected every victim he came upon before feasting.

Mordi went for the Charter Mage first, ripping out the man's throat, happily noting how its Free Magic fire burned the man. Then he was off, pouncing on the closest guard, teeth and claws rending. He barked joyfully. This was fun.

The creature licked its chops, already feeling much better at the Life it had taken. It took a while to lick, because its mouth was inordinately wide. He jumped onto the wagon seat the Charter Mage had sat in, snuffled about the entrance, and disappeared inside, exploring the contents. It found lots of jars of smelly stuff, which it thought Marisa might like. There was a problem, however – he couldn't bring them all back. He could only bring one at a time, and the jars were quite small anyway. Well, maybe it would find something else. He ignored the two pairs of horses harnessed to each wagon; he wouldn't be able to bring them back, and he didn't like eating them anyway.

"Guards! To me!" Ollison cried out, staggering to the wagon Mordi wasn't playing around in. There was a strange, wheezing noise from inside, which sounded like a child suffocating. Mordi had accidentally spilled a jar of spices and had breathed them in.

The guards rushed to their employer, swords drawn. Merle stationed himself nearest to Ollison – he wasn't too keen on being the first to fall. If worst came to worst, he'd throw Ollison in the face of the Dead thing and make a run for it. But no, he was too loyal to the man that was going to pay him, at least at that point in time.

The guards enclosed Ollison and his apprentices in two circles, one inner and one outer. They stood there, for several tense moments. Mordi was still shuffling about in the other wagon, and Ollison and his buddies used that time to jump into the other one. With carefully stifled curses of annoyance the guards immediately spread out into a circle that would encompass the vehicle (I say vehicle because 'wagon' is clearly being spelt out far too many times than necessary.). Ollison now had a barrier of wood to add to his protection, yes, but Merle and many others sourly noted that if that Dead creature got past just one of them, Ollison was done for.

Well, they were already done for anyway, so it didn't really matter.

After the few seconds of silence that followed, right when the guards started to get really nervy, Mordi exploded from the back of the wagon, fire everywhere, tongue hanging from its mouth, barking sharply (Him, not the tongue!). It tore into another guard, teeth gnashing, sucking out the life until it was a withered husk in one swift movement. In fact, he did it so quickly it took less time than it was to read the previous sentence.

Merle shut his eyes, then prudently reminded himself it might be better if he could see what was going on, and snapped them back open. Mordi was ripping apart three more guards and then immediately bounded into the wagon, where it began rending Ollison and his students apart.

It was sated, but there was still so much more life around him – however, Marisa had always glared when he overate, and she knew it when Mordi did. So the Mordicant leaped lightly out of the wagon and began to round the soldiers up, mostly for the fun of watching them scatter. It had a little idea.

"What I need," Marisa continually hissed, when Roger had given her lip, "Is someone to talk to that isn't encased within a sack of furry skin!"

Whoah. Idea. Getting bigger.

Pop.

Bing.

Mordi had a train of thought traveling at high speed.

Not that he knew what a train was, that is. It was merely a figure of speech – and he didn't know what that was either. But lay off. He's a Mordicant, after all.

Mordi inspected every human it saw and snorted at almost every one. So he'd take one back for Marisa; no problem. But Mordi was lazy; it was searching for the lightest body it could.

Then it saw Merle.

Bingo.

The Mordicant let out a wailing howl, and then began to chase every soldier willy nilly. If he did this right, he'd be able to keep them off for a day or more, which was enough time for him to drag the sack of skin and bones to his mistress and then lead her back to the jars so that they could have fun pillaging. Pillaging was an excellent form of entertainment. Besides, if any humans were stupid enough to come back, he'd just eat them. That was the solution for everything in Mordi's mind.

It tamped down its back paws and lowered it large ears, which it also did to its body as it sank to the ground. His pointed muzzle broke into a very jagged, flame-enshrouded grin. The boy was slender, quite fragile, really. He wore chain mail, but that was no problem. This would be easy.

The moment it pounced, Merle knew he was done for.

Actually, he fainted. So he only knew he was done for when he woke up and discovered he was being carried slung rather uncomfortably on the back of a demon. He promptly passed out yet again right after registering this fact.


	2. Bells, Magical Drool, and Beautiful Men

[Look… finally, an UPDATE! Hail me ^.^ yeah, time for more of this crap story. That's okay. Mordi is the best. The only reason I'm continuing this story is because of the reviewers and Mordi. Yehp.]

Marisa had just taken a dip in the river, and began vigourously trying to clean all the grit and sweat off her skin, shivering the whole time. It was the beginning of summer, and the water was still ice cold from the spring melt.

"You look _pathetic_," Roger chortled, before yowling as he was hit by a very large wave of water that had been launched with amazing accuracy. Sulking, fur dripping, the soaked cat stalked off to a patch of sun and began to clean himself off. He muttered several things the whole while, but his mouth was so full of fur Marisa didn't know what he was saying.

Marisa chuckled and waded ashore, and promptly began toweling herself off. She then began to pull her rather odd assortment of clothes on. She stopped paying attention several times, that being a habit of hers, and continually woke herself up to discover she was putting her sock on her hand. Once she finally managed to put everything in the proper place with minimum damage, she posed for Roger.

"How do I look?"

"Like a very wretched necromancer," he answered sourly, because Marisa went for the look with a passion, "Where's your sword?"

She immediately buckled it on, "Here."

"Dagger?"

"Here."

Roger grinned, "Bell bandoleer?"

"Her– ah, _shit_…"

Marisa stood still for several minutes, then began to routinely tear her camp apart in the most strangely organized manner possible. It suggested, quite frankly, that she had done something of the sort before.

"Mordi!" she wailed while she worked; she didn't expect him to answer, "what have I said about hiding Marisa's bandoleer?" 

The necromancer started to mutter and ramble some things, which were not entirely the easiest to comprehend, but it was quite close to He _better_ not have buried it again, took me hours to dig it up last time, silly mutt, won't listen to anything I say…

It was that about that time something planted their supernaturally strong paws on her back and knocked her down. She screamed, then immediately calmed. For one thing, screaming was not a good way to get Mordi to stop licking her. Secondly, Roger was snickering too much and she didn't want to give him something else to laugh about.

Mordi was quite pleased about getting to his Mistress so soon. He needed to tell her (Or at least use sign language, or something – as should already be known, Mordi can't talk) about those neato wagons, and the horsies, and the jars.

The Mordicant seemed to think that in order to achieve this, he was to tackle Marisa and administer as many licks as possible to the back of her head, therefore destroying what time Marisa had used to clean her too long and difficult hair in a few minutes.

"Grooooss…" the necromancer gagged, and began to push Mordi off. Her half-dried, frizzy hair was now sticking in all directions, with a liberal amount of Free Magic drool, dirt, blood and bog clay mixed with it. Roger laughed some more and sauntered over to see what Mordi had brought back.

The black cat nudged Merle with his nose and sniffed at him. He had no Charter Mark, which meant he couldn't test it. Well, Roger couldn't test it anyway… Charter Marks seemed to burn him. Pleased by the man's lack of Magic, he poked and prodded and fell asleep on Merle's back. After all, he happened to be a cat.

Marisa got to her feet and began to brush herself off. Mordi darted around her, bounding this way and that, its thin tail energetically swinging back and forth. To his credit he didn't step on Roger. Unfortunately.

"Stop!" Marisa ordered. It didn't seem to work. She rolled her eyes and said again, quite clearly, "Sit."

Mordi sat. He was a good boy.

His tail kept thumping, though.

Marisa straightened her waistcoat, "Now, then, what have you brought me, Mordi?" she asked rhetorically (he couldn't answer anyway). She frowned, eyes narrowing.

"I don't go with Hands, Mordi," she scolded, "I don't need a dead body."

Roger opened an eye. "Call yourself a necromancer!" he scoffed, "Can't even tell the difference between a dead body and an unconscious boy!"

She sniffed in a dignified matter, "I've had very little practice with this sort of thing." She nudged Merle with the toe of her boot, causing Roger to jump off from his comfortable perch, "Wakie wakie, peachy lankie."

"That made no sense. At all." Roger stated.

"Silence, peon!"

Merle groaned.

That, and not Marisa's command, silenced everyone… until Mordi predictably whined.

Marisa absently patted Mordi on the head, eyes still fixed on her new companion. She had noticed something.

'Say," she remarked, "he's cute."

"Humans," Roger said in disgust.

She flapped her hand at him and he jumped away from Merle, hissing. She ignored the cat and crouched at the human's side, scratched her nose, and poked him again. Marisa wasn't the medical sort. The people she dealt with the most were already dead, anyway. She knew the body parts, certainly, but not how to make them work. Mostly just how to make them stop working was her specialty.

"Hey, hey," she said softly.

Merle groaned again and stirred. He opened one hazel eye and peeked up at the necromancer. His blurred vision made him think, for a moment, that he had been rescued by a beautiful woman; but then he focused on Marisa and stifled a sigh after the realization that she was just a normal-looking, if strangely pale, girl hit him.

Pah. Maybe next time.

"You okay, buddy?" said Marisa.

Merle seemed to remember what had happened. He bolted into an upright position, terrified, before sagging back to the ground; his action had caused for him and Marisa's heads to knock against each other.

Mari rubbed her head, wincing, "Smart one, buddy."

Merle tried to struggle upright again, "Where's the demon?!"

"Er…" Marisa blinked, rubbing her forehead and attempting to focus on her new friend, "if you're talking about my dog, he's over there."

She pointed, and he turned to look. Mordi was flouncing off in the distant fields, yipping happily, trying to get his lady's attention.

"Sorry if he scared you," she apologized, hastily. Dark necromancer or not, she still had manners.

The former mercenary edged away, considering her. Other than the fact she kept and controlled a demonic _something_, she wasn't too threatening.

Marisa stood up. "Mordi!" she barked, "Mordi, you silly ass little _mongrel_! Where are mommy's bells?"

The Mordicant ran up to her, joyous at being told to do something, and began to snuffle around camp. The necromancer followed at a slow pace. Merle just sort of sat there, a bit dazed, and unwilling to run in the fear of getting chased down and brutally killed.

Well, he was probably going to be brutally killed anyway… but Merle wasn't a fan of exercise.

Mordi let out a little yip of triumph and appeared from under a clump of bushes, dropping the bell bandoleer onto the ground at Marisa's feet. She sighed. Well, at least the drool-covered leather would match her ruined hair.

Her dog nipped at her heels and whined as she put it on. Merle wasn't too surprised at the revelation that Mari was a necromancer – in fact, it was expected – but his heart still sank.

"What is it, honey?" she asked, watching her mutt romp around. It snuffled the earth and barked imploringly.

She sighed. "Goody, time for the cliched, expected, 'follow the Mordicant' sequence, eh?" she paused, and looked past the bemused Merle at someone else, "Keep an eye on him, will you, Roger?"

He whipped around, expecting to see another man; instead, he saw a cat.

The cat stalked over, curled up at the boy's feet, and said to Mari, quite clearly, "Wench."

*

Marisa hummed to herself while she skipped along after Mordi. The creature was zigzagging away in front of her, in the manner of all dogs, snuffling for any signs of life. Marisa was too busy trying to get all the clay and blood and drool out of her hair to notice anything about her surroundings until Mordi barked.

Up ahead were several wagons, with horses still tethered. The light of the setting sun glinted on the silver buckles on the animal's tack and caused her eyes to smart. 

"Good boy, Mordi," she murmured in praise, peeking into the middle wagon. Inside were clay jars, several obviously having been knocked over by the Mordicant.

Dead bodies were everywhere. Marisa didn't notice the stench; the only notice she gave was that the place was a mess, and she tut-tutted while heaving a few people out of the way.

She stared. Inside the wagon was a trove of things all female necromancers adore – spices, dried fruits, silk, clothes, weapons, and even a harp. Okay, not just necromancers… females in general.

The harp caught her interest, probably because it sparkled. She carefully stepped over the mess of jars and picked up the instrument. In the darkness of the wagon the silver gilded wood glowed (see? It was the glittery-ness of the whole construction). She traced the Charter Marks for light and sent them to the ceiling, wanting to inspect the work of art.

The silvery strings hummed softly as her hands brushed against them, even though it obviously wasn't in tune. It sent a hum of whispering into the still air, magical; her skin tingled.

"Excuse me!"

Marisa stood up and almost dropped the instrument in her shock; instead, she clutched it and edged to peek outside the wagon. She blinked.

Standing there was… a very beautiful man. He was tall, slender, and golden-haired; the evening light shone on his alabaster skin, and that same glow made his large eyes sparkle like the beads threaded into his hair.

She lost her voice, just staring at his splendour, before she found it again ten minutes later. Throughout it all, the man didn't even flinch.

"Hi." She said.

He pointed to the harp in her hands, "That's mine."

"Oh." She glanced down at it, a fold appearing between her eyebrows, before she looked back at him, "is it? I didn't know. Was it stolen?"

"Yes." 

She clambered out of the wagon at offered it to him, "it's very pretty," she gushed.

Usually, she wouldn't have acted like that, beautiful man or no. Yet her advanced senses tingled; the magic of the harp and the man melted together to form something very beautiful, and very natural; like the magic of the sea and air. "There you go."

"Nice dog," he remarked as he took the harp, nodding to Mordi.

She turned to see her Mordicant romping about in the fields, which was a mistake. You never, no matter what, turned your back on strange, magical characters in stories like these.

She turned, and predictably enough, there was no beautiful golden-haired elf-like man.

"Ah, shit." She said, regretfully, "I forgot the Storybook Rules."

Bad Marisa.


End file.
